SHANGHAI, April 19 (Reuters) - China will ban the imports of 16 more scrap metal and chemical waste products from the end of this year, the environment ministry said on Thursday.

The 16 banned products include steel smelting slag that contains more than 25 percent of the metal manganese and ethylene polymer waste, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) said in a document published on its website. Another 16 items will be banned by the end of 2019, it said.

China’s crackdown on waste imports, which stood at as much as 47 million tonnes in 2015, is part of its “war on pollution” and designed to help the country upgrade its economy and move up the global supply chain.

Reporting by David Stanway and Muyu Xu; Editing by Christian
Schmollinger